In the Cyberpunk universe, you can definitely have too much of a good thing. It may seem like a great idea to give yourself cybernetically enhanced vision, leg implants that let you double-jump, retractable blades that pop out of your arms, and any number of other body-enhancing bits of cyberware, but replacing your human parts with machinery comes with a downside: the gradual loss of your humanity and a chance of developing cyberpsychosis, a mental disorder with symptoms that include loss of empathy, impulsive outbursts, and extreme violence.
In the Cyberpunk tabletop game, a player's humanity is governed by an empathy stat, which drops each time a new cyberware implant is installed and can eventually lead to cyberpsychosis, at which point the player's character is controlled by the GM. Cyberpsychosis is also heavily featured in the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime series on Netflix, as several characters grapple with the affliction.
In Cyberpunk 2077, though, the condition isn't particularly well-explored. There are a series of missions to track down and neutralize cyberpsychos running amok in Night City, but these mostly boil down to some brief investigative activities that lead to boss fights against powerful and unhinged enemies. Now there's a way to go a bit deeper into the concept with your own character.
As spotted by GamesRadar, prolific Cyberpunk 2077 modder djkovrik has created the Wannbe Edgerunner mod, which will let you play CD Projekt's RPG with a more lore-based approach to cyberpsychosis. It adds a new humanity system to the game, bringing it more in line with the TTRPG and Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and the effects of cyberpsychosis will kick in when your humanity drops too low.
It's not just adding new cyberware to your body that will cause a drop in your humanity score. Committing murders will also cause your humanity to drop, functioning a bit like a morality system. Using certain operating systems will also lower your humanity score, like Berserk, which when activated gives you attack buffs for melee and projectile weapons, and Sandevistan (also featured in the anime series) which buffs blade attacks. In other words, if you plug in some cyberware and go rampaging around the city murdering innocent people with special attacks, you're gonna become the cyberpsycho you're already acting like.
Side-effects of cyberpsychosis start off pretty mildly, introducing some minor visual glitches and a debuff to your critical damage modifier that can be cured by getting some sleep. Symptoms get more severe, however, with more extreme visual glitches and another debuff to critical hit chance. When you go full cyberpsycho you'll become more powerful with buffs to your speed, armor, and health regeneration, but your vision will be swamped with glitches and cops will automatically be dispatched to your location.
It's not all bad news. Buying higher quality cyberware won't have as big a cost on your humanity as buying cruddy junk parts and cramming them into your body. You can also offset your plummeting humanity with an injection of neuroblockers, as seen in the anime series. They're available to buy at ripperdocs, and using these injections will remove cyberpsychosis side-effects and freeze the loss of humanity points while the meds are active.
It sounds like an interesting system to add to Cyberpunk 2077. It'll definitely give you pause when you're thinking about going ham on a bunch of civilians, and it'll give you some new choices to mull over when you're considering what cyberware you want to bolt onto your bod. You'll find the Wannabe Edgerunner mod at Nexus Mods.
